Snow report Zugspitz Arena, 04/07/2015

Snow condition

Great for April! Better than many a time in high winter! Skiing down to the valley (1200m) possible without any problems and without ground contact.

Snow quality

Fantastic powder on the northern slopes above around 1400m! Already a bit settled and a bit harder towards midday further down, but great skiing throughout. Only the eastern slope, which had probably already had a lot of sun the day before, was covered with a layer of hard snow.

Not entirely uncritical, the LLB reported level 2 below 2600m, with the hazard patterns of cold, loose fresh snow + wind (gm6), snow-covered sleet (gm9) and spring conditions (gm10). At least numbers 6 and 10 were easy to observe: on the ascent, some loose snow slides from the previous day could be seen on rocky, sunlit steep terrain (see photo 4). We also triggered a small (and fortunately harmless) snow slab on the way into the very steep summit slope, which was probably caused by a drifting snow pack. So it's best to continue to be careful, in the next few days the diurnal warming, which was already enormous today, is likely to become more and more of a problem.

Overall impression

Great snow conditions for the beginning of April, plus dream weather - super! It remains to be seen how long the powder will last with the rising temperatures.